AGOG

Agog! A Feast of Foreign Films, returns to the James Theatre Dungog on 26 and 27 August 2016

Starting at 7pm on Friday 26 August with hit French film The Belier Family, Agog continues with four films on Saturday 27 August, commencing at 11am. Our famous Supper behind the Screen also returns, prior to the final film on Saturday night.

Tickets are now available to purchase online here, and get in fast for the early bird special. Ticket prices are:
Early bird until August 15 – all five films, $65
All five films regular price – $70
Single films – $15
Supper behind the Screen $35
(A small booking fee is also charged at the time of purchase.)

A captivating new star is born in THE BÉLIER FAMILY, Eric Lartigau’s fabulous, heart-felt comedy hit about a young girl whose close bond to her hearing-impaired family is challenged by the discovery of an extraordinary talent for music. In the Bélier family, everyone is deaf, except dutiful sixteen-year-old Paula (beautiful newcomer Louane Emera). She acts as an indispensable interpreter for her parents and younger brother, especially in the running of the family dairy farm. Though her salt-of-the-earth father (François Damiens) has decided to run for mayor – spurred on by her vivacious but over-involved mother (indelibly portrayed by Karin Viard) – Paula’s attentions are very much elsewhere. She’s witnessed the handsome new boy at school sign up for the choir, and impulsively joined too. It’s not long before her music teacher (Éric Elmosnino) discovers her considerable talent, however his encouragement only exacerbates the matter of Paula’s independence. Building to a heart-soaring and emotional finale, THE BÉLIER FAMILY is a feel-great triumph. Emera, making her screen debut after being discovered on the French edition of The Voice, is a genuine revelation – she lends both sincerity and joy to this deeply moving film that has been a word-of-mouth phenomenon across Europe, achieving over 10 million admissions to date and becoming France’s most popular film of 2015.

Dubbed the new Slumdog Millionaire, this is a funny, charming South Indian tale of two mischievous, resourceful brothers from a Chennai slum who become determined to taste pizza for the very first time. In a slum in Chennai, in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, two young boys are growing up unaware of all the things they don’t have – such as pizza. The boys are known as Little Crow’s Egg (V. Ramesh) and Big Crow’s Egg (J Vignesh), because they like to entice the crows from the trees with rice, then steal their eggs.It is a sign of poverty – something they don’t quite understand. They live in a tiny hovel with their hard-working mother (Iyshwarya Rajesh) and paternal grandmother (Shanti Mani). Their father (Nivas Adithan) is in a prison ward for tuberculosis patients. The boys collect coal beside the rail tracks, earning about 10 rupees a day. When a pizza parlour opens on the edge of their neighbourhood, they are fascinated. Older brother determines that they must work to make the 300 rupees they need to eat a pizza – an outrageous sum.
“FUNNY, CHARMING AND MOVING. THIS FILM HAS EARNED COMPARISONS TO SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE” Sydney Film Festival.
‘A MOVIE REPLETE WITH HUMOUR, SOME ABSOLUTE SPUNK AND BRILLIANT PERFORMANCES..DO NOT MISS THIS ONE” Cinema Impressions.

This truly dazzling film from Vanuatu premiered at the Venice Film Festival. You will never see greens this rich, or such an amazing array of landscapes. Directors Bentley Dean and Martin Butler worked with the people of the Yakel community to develop this story of star-crossed lovers. Wawa and Dain are in love but Kastom (traditional law) decrees that Wawa be married into a neighbouring tribe. The resulting drama shows that love, not war, takes genuine courage and that even the oldest traditions must contain the flexibility to evolve and bring about change.

Leviathan is a gripping parable of class, faith and corruption, centring on a dispute between a small-time mechanic and his local authorities that reaps unimaginable and extraordinary consequences.
Kolia (the magnetic Alexey Serebryakov) lives in a coastal village near the Barents Sea in Northern Russia, running an auto-repair shop from the garage of his childhood home, shared with young wife Lilya (Elena Lyadova) and his teenage son from a previous marriage.
The family’s world is under threat: Vadim Sergeyich (Roman Madyanov), the imperious town Mayor, has slapped a compulsory acquisition order on Kolia’s prime land, earmarking the site for a development of undetermined but dubious funding (and offering risible, token compensation). To Sergeyich’s great surprise, Kolia enlists the help of ex-army friend Dmitri (Vladimir Vdovitchenkov), now a hotshot lawyer from Moscow. Dmitri has uncovered some highly incriminating evidence that he believes will force the Mayor to back down, even if he has secrets of his own. Soon tempers and passions are inflamed, events spiral out of control, and lives are placed at stake.
Zvyagintsev’s deftly-drawn and morally complex thriller is an electrifying, vodka-fuelled examination of the familial, sexual and judicial tangles of ordinary human lives. Saturated with incredible imagery, superb performances and sly, Kafkaesque humour, this astounding and frequently surprising masterwork should, quite simply, not be missed.

Who would have thought that a tale about sheep in rural Iceland could bring tears to your eyes? Grímur Hakonarson’s RAMS does just that. Majestically shot in a spectacular, weather-swept valley, this wryly observed fable about two brothers who are more obstinate than the sheep they breed begins as a droll comedy about rural life and grows into a graceful and mythic tale about family, community and legacy. Siblings Gummi (Sigurður Sigurjónsson) and Kiddi (Theodór Júlíusson) have been living side by side without speaking to each other for forty years, each tending to their pedigree ancestral flock. When communication can’t be avoided, Kiddi’s dog Somi trots between houses carrying their handwritten notes between his teeth. Kiddi is a boozer and brawler, a popular figure at community get-togethers, but it’s through the eyes of his gentle younger brother Gummi that we see him acting out. Their world is upended when the valley comes under threat from infection. While neighbours abandon their land, each brother tries to stave off disaster: Kiddi by taking action, and Gummi by using his wits. As the authorities close in, there’s every reason for them to set aside a lifetime of hostility to save their special breed, and their unique way of life, from extinction. But can they? The hugely-popular winner of the Un Certain Regard Best Film Prize at the 2015 Cannes International Film Festival (awarded by a Jury led by Isabella Rossellini), and greeted with a thunderous 10 minute standing ovation at its premiere, Hákonarson effortlessly balances humour and pathos to tell a tale that feels both intimate and epic, a loving portrait of both culture and family in a place where change doesn’t come easily.